Project Vision 21

Francisco Miraval

I had to read the story twice to be sure I understood it properly. After the second time I read it, the absurdity of the situation let me to think about the fragility and absurdity of human life. I also wished nothing like that would ever happen again. My wish, however, was promptly undone.

According to the story in a local newspaper in western Colorado, Eliseo Lopez, 42, and his wife, Mayra, 40, residents in a small city, were killed by the couple’s nephew, Williams Anderson Amaya, 33 (who was renting a room at the Lopezes’ home), after a dispute about the family’s dog.

Local police are still investigating the case, so some details have not been made public, such as what it said during the arguments. Police did say, however, that the situation was violent enough for the couple’s boys (13 and 11) to shelter themselves in different rooms of the house and eventually to call 911 after their heard the shots.

What circumstances or emotions can lead a person –I asked myself– to kill to people (in this case, his own relatives) just because they had some differences over a dog? It is obvious we don’t know if there were any other problems between the Lopezes and their nephew and it is clear that at one point the argument was no longer about the dog. Regardless, who would kill people because of a dog?

I was sure that was such an unusual case it won’t happen again. That’s what I really thought. My illusion, however, was short-lived. Only two days later, I read in a newspaper in Buenos Aires, Argentina, about a physician who shot and killed his neighbor after a dispute about a problem with the dogs of both families.

According to the story, Dr. Oscar Hernández, who is around 60 and lives in a suburb north of Buenos Aires City, killed Sergio Beltran, 60, a local newspaper delivery person, after Hernandez and Beltran had an argument about their dogs. After the shooting, Beltran was transported to a nearby hospital, where he died. Hernandez was arrested by local authorities a short time later.

So, in just a matter of days and in two distant places (and not only in the geographical sense), three people were killed by somebody close to them and in both cases it all started with a dispute about dogs.

I have heard about killings among criminals and, unfortunately, it is very common to hear about crimes of passion. However, among all the reasons that may lead a person to kill another person I have never heard before “a dispute about dogs.” (The dogs, of course, are totally innocent. After all, they did not buy they guns and they didn’t use them.)

Questions: Is human life in our society, including the lives of our own relatives and neighbors, so devaluated that even a disagreement about dogs seems to be a good excuse to “get rid” of people we know? Are we really that narcissistic?